Dragons Aflight- a Collection of Shorts and One Shots

Mirrors- a Veronica Sanders One Shot

Mirrors aren't only for reflection.

The glass is a barrier that can easily be broken. You don't only have to see yourself in it. You can see what's inside you. That gory solution of bones, blood and internals. With one look, you can see through all of it, and watch every mechanism that brings you to life.

That keeps you breathing.

But who even says you have to be you? You could be anything you want. You don't have to be this fourteen year old girl of 5.1". You don't have to be the girl with frizzy butterscotch hair and doe eyes. I'm not just this, of course. Veronica Sanders is not just I. I'm plenty of things: that's what the identities say at least. I'm Janice Williams, a 13 year old from Idaho (as if I had ever been in the first place). I'm also Beatrice Denmark- one of the first false identities I've ever had. Dad let me choose that one, but little did I know he had to play the role of my uncle who took care of me after my parents apparently deceased. I didn't understand fake identities that much when my parents claimed I first needed one. I pictured it as a way to play pretend. I didn't know it would actually have to be me.

But that was the cool thing about mirrors. I could forget all of that.

I didn't have to be names I was bound to. Mirrors were painfully temporary in the most fascinating of ways. I wasn't just Veronica Sanders. I could be one of my childhood fantasies, or maybe even my celebrity dreams (though I am greatly embarrassed by having them in the first place).

I could also be a girl. A girl whose biggest challenge was to decide if I was trying out for a sport or sticking with the violin. But that was a dream I would have to cast away. Miraculously becoming Arianna Grande turned out being more realistic than being a girl.

I stare into the dark hazel of my eyes sometimes. Eyes are said to be windows to the soul, and every time I look through a pair in public, I try to find it. It's fairly easy if you're focused on the craft. With one look, you come out with a real, sentient person (even if they think you're crazy for staring at them for so long). But my eyes were different. I couldn't look past it all. I couldn't push away everything. Behind my eyes were names and secrets and storm clouds. I didn't see a soul. I saw fogged mirrors that were more distorted then the one I stared at.

My brother Jaxon calls my mirror obsession an act of vanity. I laugh and play along with his joke, though we both know it's far from that. Mirrors are my escape. I can look in a mirror and find a world that I hope for, that may or may not ever come true. I could be someone who didn't have to run. I could be this girl who shouldn't have to be so much of a distant fantasy than she really is. Sadly, for now I'm Veronica Sanders. And Janice Williams. And Beatrice Denmark.

And my mirror isn't only a reflection.